Nothing Left
by girl in the glen
Summary: Grim realities leave disturbing memories for the men from UNCLE.


_"Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable."_

 _Woody Allen_

 _:~~~~~:~~~~~:_

There was no point in denying the obvious because the scene in front of them spoke volumes, even if the two men from UNCLE could not verbalize their reaction to it. Dressed in hazmat suits and carrying instruments to measure radiation, infection… a variety of external dangers, Solo and Kuryakin were as safe as their technology could make them. Once before they had performed a similar inspection, and once again the population of an entire village was dead.

"Call this in, ask for a clean up crew and … ', the sigh was from a place so deep, Napoleon Solo felt the emptiness it left behind.

"Illya…" The blond head looked up, eyes squinting against the glare of sunlight as it shone down on the devastation.

"I know. We could never have anticipated this my friend, nor conceived of this kind of human waste. I have been exposed to much that still haunts me, but this… this kind of brutality is beyond the evil of the past."

Napoleon only nodded, he still felt sick from the sight of so much carnage. THRUSH had reached a new low with this line of experimentation, the use of indigenous people in isolated locations who wouldn't be missed by anyone. Horrific, inhuman… evil.

"Illya… ' Napoleon couldn't seem to get past saying his partner's name. Nothing else made sense to him, only the stability of the man standing next to him.

Kuryakin understood. His own experiences, during the war and its aftermath under Stalin's murderous regime, had been enough for anyone to endure. There was no way to understand it, but experience laid a foundation for accepting that there truly was evil in the world. This was traumatizing to him as well as to Napoleon, but his stoic nature held his reactions in check.

"You make the call Napoleon, I will continue the search for survivors." The American acquiesced, grateful to his friend for the kindness. He knew it affected the Russian as well but somehow he was able to shield himself from the situation, as though walking through something virtual rather than real.

"Why? Why did they do this? These people were innocent in a way that the world can't understand, and yet McCordy set his sights on this place, destroying an entire island population. For what? He's dead, all of his people are dead… ' the sigh once again reached into the depths of his soul. "I'm sorry, I just…"

"Your reaction is right, do not apologize for it. THRUSH continues to prove to us that at its center they are beyond redemption, their acts of genocide, of unspeakable tortures… If one were looking to prove the reality of a devil, this would suffice."

"Are you? Looking for devils?" Napoleon caught something, a nuance of searching soul he sometimes thought hid within the facade of Illya's ordered life.

"I am merely noting that evil does exist, regardless of its origins. THRUSH is the embodiment of evil, their purpose seemingly to cause the most despair, the most misery."

Napoleon nodded his agreement. The body count as he looked around must have been close to three hundred people. They were lined up like soldiers, perfectly spaced save for a few who had fallen out of formation. The scientist, McCordy, was among them as well as his staff of about twenty, including guards. All of them were dead, their faces contorted with the final moments of their descent into McCordy's insane experiment.

"Why do you think he subjected his own people to this? Is it suicide or … do you think he miscalculated?" Illya didn't want to speculate. He had little hope that any had survived, but he would continue to walk among the dead, looking for anything that might have defied this insanity.

"Go make your call, Napoleon. I will look for survivors." It was hollow sounding, even to his ears.

When a helicopter arrived with UNCLE and UN personnel, Solo and Kuryakin were out of the protective clothing, the environment having been verified as clear of danger. The discovery of a container of liquid, juice perhaps, now was confirmed as the source of the slaughter. That explained the orderly appearance of the scene, rows of people who it now could be seen were all holding a paper cup in one hand. It wouldn't be the last time a madman orchestrated such a tragic event.

In the days that followed there were test results on the contents of the liquid, of the various drugs found within the camp's sophisticated laboratory, and the autopsies that were performed on every victim. They had each been fed a cocktail of experimental drugs and then, finally, the lethal beverage.

"Why did McCordy kill himself, and his staff? I still don't understand how he got to that point." Napoleon was vexed with this affair, sickened by the outcome. Illya had a sheaf of papers in his hands, the results of the lab work that had been done.

"McCordy apparently was taking the same drugs that he administered, many of which were hallucinogens that, in one tragic moment, triggered something in his altered state that prompted him to mix up the lethal beverage and order everyone to drink it. He was, quite literally, out of his mind. THRUSH appears to have wanted more information about the drugs he was developing, and choosing this out of the way, sparsely populated island was an ideal solution. No one could observe, and they did stay under the radar for quite a while. Our discovery of this situation was purely chance, a bit of chatter on one of their channels."

Napoleon wondered if they might have saved these people, questioned whether there might be other locations like the one McCordy was overseeing.

Alexander Waverly saw the signs in his CEA, understood the frustration and even anger at not having done enough.

"We will continue to monitor those channels, hopefully to discover what THRUSH is hoping to hide from the world. We are not able to save everyone, Mr. Solo, but we will not give up trying to save those we know are in danger. That is all, gentlemen. Please take the next forty-eight hours to recuperate; after your reports are fully realized, of course."

Both Napoleon and Illya nodded, and replied in unison, "Yes sir".

Walking away from that meeting, each man silently resolved to use the time away as a means of closing off this episode. It was of course what Waverly intended for them, although the ghosts of those innocent victims would not soon vanish.


End file.
